SPEED UP AN SSD YOU INSTALL YOURSELF
Set your PC to boot from your SSD
If your computer came with an SSD installed, it should be configured to boot from that drive before any other hard drives, so that Windows starts in seconds. But if you’ve added an SSD yourself, you need to make sure it’s set as the priority boot device or your PC will start much more slowly.
To change the boot order, you need to access your PC’S UEFI or BIOS. In Windows 10, open Settings, click ‘Update & Security’, then Recovery and click the ‘Restart now’ button in the ‘Advanced start-up’ section. In Windows 11, choose System, then Recovery and click ‘Restart now’.
Once your PC restarts, choose Troubleshoot, then ‘Advanced options’, select UEFI Firmware Settings and click Restart. On the UEFI or BIOS screen that opens, choose Boot Options (or similar) and select the option called Boot Order
( 1 in our screenshot above right), Boot Sequence or Boot Priority. Use the specified keys on your keyboard or the options in the on-screen menu to configure the boot order so your SSD appears first (as we’ve done with our Samsung drive 2 ).
If your SSD isn’t listed, you may need to open your PC’S case and disconnect your old hard drive from your motherboard, so your UEFI or BIOS automatically detects the new drive.
Save the new boot order, exit the UEFI or BIOS screen and restart your PC again. Your SSD will now start your computer significantly faster than before.
Check how your SSD connects to your PC
The simplest way to add an SSD to your computer is to buy an external drive that connects via a USB cable, but you’ll get faster speeds from a device that slots into your PC’S motherboard – we look at the best new options for both types on page 57. Whichever SSD you choose, it’s essential to ensure it plugs into the right port using the correct cable, or you won’t get the performance you paid for.
If you’re planning to replace your internal hard drive with an SSD, you’ll almost certainly need a device with a SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) interface. Unless you have a particularly old PC, this is likely to be SATA III, which offers a maximum data-transfer rate of 6 gigabits per second (Gbps) – with eight bits to a byte, this means a write speed of 750 megabytes per second (MB/S).
You connect your SSD to your PC’S SATA power supply using the 15-pin power cable and to your motherboard using the sevenpin data cable (see photo below of a Samsung SATA SSD). Use the first (lowest numbered) SATA port on your motherboard to set your SSD as the default boot drive and ensure a speedy start-up.
Things get more complicated when upgrading an existing SSD, because it could have a PCIE or M.2 interface, and use a newer connection standard called NVME, which is at least five times as fast as SATA. These devices have different fittings to SATA SSDS, so to avoid frustration, make sure to check your PC’S specifications before you buy a new solid-state drive. We clarified the differences between SSD types, and explained how to fit them in your PC, in our ‘Complete Guide to SSDS’ Cover Feature in Issue 626 – read it on our 2022 Back Issue CD from www.snipca.com/44660.
Plugging an external device into a USB port is a lot easier than fiddling around inside your PC, but for optimum performance your computer will need to use the same USB standard as the SSD. Many new drives are USB 3.2 Gen 2, which can transfer data at up to 10Gbps (1250MB/S) – theoretically faster than internal SATA drives. But if you only have USB 3.0 ports, your SSD will be less than half as fast at up to 4.8Gbps (600MB/S), because the speed depends on the slowest link in the chain. A USB 2.0 port on a much older PC will cut your data-transfer rate to a sluggish 480Mbps (60MB/S).
You can check the USB version of your ports by opening the USB Serial Bus Controllers section in Device Manager. In our screenshot below, we can see that our laptop has two USB 3.10 ‘host controllers’, which means its ports will get the optimum speed from USB 3.0 and 3.1 (Gen 1) SSDS (which, confusingly, are the same standard).